


It's All Just a Blur

by westwinds



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Angst and Feels, At least I didn't use Carly Rae Jepsen like I wanted to, Gen, One Shot, Pop Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26617225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwinds/pseuds/westwinds
Summary: In which the late Cyrus, Fifth Saint to Serve the King Undying, has left in his bedroom on the Mithraeum artifacts of his (or his cavalier's) ancient music tastes, which Ianthe the First uses to annoy a despondent Harrow.Harrow the Ninth spoilers up until about chapter 25.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	It's All Just a Blur

You, Harrowhark the First, Ninth Saint of the King Undying, the Emperor’s fist and gesture, formerly styled Harrowhark the Ninth, Reverend Daughter, betrothed to the Locked Tomb, steward to that which lies still and insensate with closed eye and stilled breath behind the rock that is never to be rolled away, lay curled, foetal and inconsolable, a skinny shadow wrapped in exoskeleton, bony body enveloping a similarly bone-sheathed two-handed infantry sword, on the bed lately claimed by Ianthe the First.

“Harry, _must_ you be so constantly morose?” Ianthe grubbed from across the room, where she’d tucked her long body into an unnecessarily ornate wood-with-bone-inlay chair, one bare foot perched on its stuffed, embroidered seat. “The thought of dealing with this for a myriad is giving me malaise.”

In response you merely curled up tighter, gaze fixed on precisely nothing, mouth pursed in a little twist of discontent. Ianthe huffed softly and continued applying some heinous amethyst-coloured powder to her eyelids. The purple colour over her jaundiced skin produced an unappealing brown reminiscent of the raspy-skinned potatoes you’d become acquainted with on your furtive, rifling trips through the artificially-chilled room that passed for a root cellar on the Mithraeum.

Gazing down upon you, the offensively nude portraits of Cyrus and his (dummy-thicc) cavalier Valancy witnessed your helpless distress, judging you and – like everyone else on this tomb of a space station, including yourself – finding you wanting. You must have let out a little unbidden, miserable moan then, because Ianthe’s attention wheeled back to you.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she snapped. “If I can’t convince you to stop moping, I can at least drown you out.” With that, she rustled in a drawer with her good hand – the one that had, until a moment before, been manipulating a makeup brush, while the other dangled useless and blue in her lap – and pulled out what looked like a flat fold of flimsy. No, it was paper – thick, real paper printed with obscene shades of pink and blue and the impression of a woman’s face.

From this fold of paper, she pulled another relic: a disc of pressed plex, or a material quite like it, impressed with concentric grooves. This disc she fitted with some impatience on an old machine underneath a dust cover, far to her right; to reach it she had to lean rather awkwardly over her unfavoured arm. You noticed all of this distantly, too absorbed in the fog of your depression to pay any real attention. Perhaps if you’d been watching, you’d have felt a stab of pity and duty regarding that arm.

As Ianthe flipped a switch on this ancient apparatus, the room filled with the low hum of static. She adjusted a round knob and the volume increased just as the static coalesced into a beat: notes from a piano, something that sounded like rhythmic finger snaps. Your vision focused as you realized that you couldn’t ignore this offensive, pre-historic _noise,_ and you opened your mouth to bite out an acerbic protest over the emerging trill of a female singer.

“Tridentarius –” you tried to say, but your voice was raspy from disuse and misery, and so it came out as a whisper from your throat. You only knew Ianthe heard you because she turned up the volume again.

You raised yourself up on one elbow as the music continued, nonsensical lyrics pouring from the wooden speakers in each corner of the room. This was at least as bad as Ortus' poetry.

> _In my feelings more than Drake, so yeah_
> 
> _Your name on my lips, tongue-tied_

“Ianthe,” you called, louder this time, but your voice weakened prematurely. _Your name on my lips, tongue-tied_. The line reverberated around your skull, but the song didn’t stop. It continued with:

> _Free rent, living in my mind_
> 
> _But then something happened one magical night_

You became suddenly and absurdly aware of all the mysterious letters rustling within pockets in your exoskeleton – those letters written by some before-Harrow, some master of your destiny that you tried never to think about, who had plans for you that you’d never understand. _But then something happened one magical night._ Deep inside your skull, at the base of your spine, you felt the heat flare up: your anger at not understanding. _Something happened._ Something…

Your mouth wanted to say, “What happened?” But all that came out was a whimper.

That whimper turned into a shriek as pain seared inside your head at the next line, an electric current somewhere behind your ears. Your vision went dark.

> _I forgot that you existed_

You felt the rivulets of blood cascading from your ears, your eyes, by the heat of it against your skin. It dripped off your nose and cheek, blooming on the cotton-fibre pillow case beneath your head.

> _And I thought that it would kill me, but it didn’t_
> 
> _And it was so nice_
> 
> _So peaceful and quiet_

The singer drew out that last word into a series of yelps, “qui-ei-ei-ei-et”, and each one hit your temple like a ball-peen hammer. You wanted – needed – to tell Ianthe to turn it off, but she had drowned you out. This suffering was intolerable, even as an immortal Lyctor whose murder had been attempted in more than a dozen differently-painful ways. You had to make it stop.

Your whimper-screams became a purely animal keening as the next line sounded out, the singer’s voice sonorous and sharp:

> _I forgot that you existed_

You felt your gorge rising. Your head was a mass of blind pain. You were no longer in control of your body. You felt your hands scrabbling, clutching at the quilted coverlet that was wet from your blood, and then you fell bodily off the bed, thumping on to the floor.

And finally, Ianthe stopped the music. “Good _lord_ , Nonagesimus, can you stop that noise – oh my GOD.” Your eyes were screwed tightly shut so you didn’t see it, but you knew by the rustle of her lace skirts that she’d seen you and had stood up. You were wretched, helpless, confused, and hurt. You needed Ianthe at that moment: she was your only ally. You felt your soul desperately claw toward her as she approached your pathetic wreck of a self, huddled on the floor next to the bed. You heard her intake of breath, hoping for a measure of comfort: _you poor thing_ , or _it’s alright now_ , _I’m here._

Instead: “You’ve RUINED my sheets, you little witch! Get OUT!”


End file.
